Benji and the River Race

The Rio Cobre Raft Race happened every October, and the Cliffside crew had never won it.

They had come second twice, third three times, and once, memorably, last — when the raft had been built by committee and nobody had agreed on the steering mechanism until they were already in the water. The race was open to any team from the communities along the river, and six years in, it had become the kind of event that people took seriously without it being officially serious.

This year the Cliffside raft had been built by Omar’s father and two other men from the neighbourhood over the course of three weekends, and it was good. It was genuinely good. It was low in the water and fast and the steering worked, and for the first time Clevie had looked at the raft on the riverbank and said “we might actually win this” without being immediately corrected.

Benji found it at five in the morning.

He had been moving along the riverbank in the dark, because the river at night had smells and sounds that the river in the day did not have, and one of those sounds — on this particular morning — was wrong. A movement. Something near the raft that was not wind and not water.

He stayed and watched until whoever it was had gone.

Then he sat with the raft.

At six-fifteen he went for the children.

The raft race started at nine. At six-thirty, Omar was not yet fully awake when Benji appeared at his window — the ground floor, which was within reach — and did the specific noise that meant come now, which was not a bark, more of a considered alert.

Omar was at the riverbank by seven with Clevie and Nadine.

The raft looked intact.

“It looks fine,” Clevie said.

“He was there for a reason,” Nadine said.

“Look closer,” Omar said.

It was Nadine who found it — a change in the lashing on the left steering oar. The lashing held the oar into its pivot bracket, and it was supposed to be doubled-wound rope, tight, the kind that had taken Omar’s father and his friend forty-five minutes to set correctly last weekend.

Someone had cut the inner cord.

Not all the way through. Halfway. The outer cord was intact. The lashing looked normal. But the inner cord was severed, and under race conditions — fast water, the oar under load — it would fail within the first few minutes. The left oar would come loose. In fast water, that was not just a loss. That was a capsize.

Clevie looked at the cut cord for a long time.

“Someone came in the night,” he said.

“Benji saw them,” Nadine said.

“He sat with the raft.” Clevie looked at the river. “He sat with it all night to make sure they didn’t come back.”

“Yes,” she said.

Omar had his notebook out. He was writing: Cut was made from the inside of the lashing — whoever did it knew how the lashing worked. This is not someone who walked past and cut a rope. This is someone who knew what they were cutting and why.

“Which team knew about the lashing?” Omar said.

“Everybody who came to see the raft last weekend,” Clevie said. “Both the other Cliffside teams helped build it.”

“Not both,” Nadine said. “One helped build it. The other team looked at it when they came to the riverside on Saturday.”

“The Waterford team was here on Saturday?”

“Not the race team. A group of older boys from Waterford came past on Saturday afternoon. They watched the build for about twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes is enough to understand a lashing,” Omar said.

They found Omar’s father before seven-thirty and told him what they had found. He looked at the lashing and said nothing for a moment and then said several things that were not appropriate for his son’s notebook.

He re-lashed the oar. He checked every other lashing and fitting on the raft. He did this thoroughly and with the expression of a man who had built something with care and intended it to stay built.

“Should we tell someone?” Clevie said.

“I’m going to tell the race organizer,” Omar’s father said. “And they can decide what to do with it.” He looked at Benji. “The dog stayed with it?”

“Since before five,” Omar said.

His father looked at Benji for a long moment. Benji looked back.

“Good dog,” he said.

Benji accepted this.

The race organizer, an efficient woman named Miss Beulah who had run the event since its first year, listened to the account and looked at the original cut cord that Omar’s father had removed and kept. She said she would be speaking with the Waterford community’s race coordinator, and she said it in a tone that suggested this conversation would not be pleasant for the coordinator.

“Do we race?” Omar’s father asked.

“We race,” Miss Beulah said. “With a fixed raft and a fair start.”

They raced.

The Cliffside raft came first by three lengths, which was the largest winning margin in six years. The left steering oar held for the full race. Clevie, who was not on the raft but on the bank — the racing crew were adults and older teens — jumped into the river from the bank at the finish line, which was not part of the race but was generally approved of by the spectators.

Nadine watched from the bank with her arms folded and her expression of someone who has arranged for a particular outcome and is now observing it arrive.

Omar wrote in his notebook: First win in six years. Raft was built correctly, raced correctly. The only thing that almost went wrong was external, and we caught it.

He added: Benji does not race. He sets conditions for racing correctly. Then the rest is up to us. I think this is the arrangement.

He read it back. He thought it was exactly right.